Tag: 71st Infantry Brigade

In the face of the enemy

Peter Larsen2 Comments

In the predawn darkness of October 8th, 1918, Captain Thomas Barton hurried past soldiers and equipment to his place on the front line. The attack he was supposed to lead was to have started ten minutes ago. Barton, commanding G Company in the 142nd Infantry Regiment, had been in his commander’s post at 2nd Battalion Headquarters at 4:50 a.m. to receive his orders.

Just after five a.m. the Battalion commander arrived from Regiment Headquarters with the news: the 142nd was going on the attack along with their brigade that morning. The men would climb out of their foxholes and dugouts at 5:15. “Major, I cannot make it” Barton interjected, looking at his watch, “it is 5:11 now”.  The major told his commanders to get to their companies as quickly as they could and pointed in the direction they should attack. The major had seen a map at Regiment, but he had no maps to give. Barton’s Company G and Company H would go over first, attacking in the direction of the village of Saint-Étienne à Arnes about a kilometer away.

Making war

In the costly and dense warfare of 1918 France and Belgium, the only way to advance was in carefully coordinated assaults of combined arms. That meant concentrated artillery barrages with the attackers already out of their trenches moving forward while shells struck the enemy just yards ahead. Moving with the infantry were tanks to take on rows and rows of barbed wire and machine gun nests. The artillery barrage would creep forward, and the attackers would rush in before defenders could organize. In addition, aircraft would spot the enemy strong points and signal coordinates by radio or handwritten messages for the artillery to strike. And the process would repeat.

At least that was the idea.

Victory loan poster

Captain Barton reached his men at 5:25 and explained the situation. Before them was gently rolling treeless farmland, punctuated with woods on low hilltops and around the village. The nearest German defenses were just one hundred yards away. They were concealed in a woods that stood between the American line and the village. From Barton’s position, he couldn’t see Saint- Étienne so the Major’s directive using the village as a reference point was not useful to him.

Thomas Dickson Barton had been a citizen soldier for twenty-six years. He’d been an officer, on and off, for over twenty years. He served in the Philippines during the Spanish-American War for over a year. He was on the Texas-Mexico Border for ten months as a company commander during the Crisis of 1916-1917. In civilian life he owned a pharmacy in Amarillo, Texas and helped recruit his company of young Texans, many of whom were now there with him in France.

The attack begins

Assisting the attack were French tanks, from the 2nd and 3rd Battalion, 501e Régiment de chars de combat (501e RCC). Six Renault FT tanks would support the 142nd Infantry in its attack.

Behind the Texans and Oklahomans was a substantial host of artillery: the US 2nd Field Artillery Brigade along with the French 29e Régiment d’Artillerie and two other bataillons of heavy artillery.

As Captain Barton was giving his orders French and American artillery struck, signaling the attack. For some American officers on the front line, this was their first notice that an attack had been ordered. Explosions rocked the earth in front of them and smoke filled the air. At about the same time, German artillery retaliated in what was described as a “literally appalling” counter-barrage.

From the time the 142nd Infantry and other parts of the 71st Brigade took their positions twenty-four hours before, the Germans had anticipated the attack. And while the Allies were sending their shells over and beyond the German front line, the German shots were right on target. Explosions from German artillery hit along the front line. More German shells hit the rest of the Brigade, who were located farther back. Machine gun bullets filled the air.

Map of used in the attack at St. Etienne.

Over the top

After watching American and French shells hit as far as three hundred yards off-target, men of the 142nd got ready to step into the fight. Captain Barton signaled the Regiment’s mortar platoon and one-pounder guns. Figuring “we will never need them worse”, he had them fire directly into the woods in front of them. All of the Regiment’s grenades were left behind on October 4 when they were deployed.  

Twenty to thirty minutes after Allied artillery opened fire, the barrage shifted further away. Captain Barton’s Company G and the one next to it, Company H, were the first to attack. Texas and Oklahoma Guardsmen rushed forward in short sprints, hitting the dirt after several yards. As they were advancing, Companies E and F followed suit. 

As the forward groups of men reached the strands of barbed wire, the woods in front of them lit up with flashes from machine gun barrels. The German front line was better defended than at first believed. Machine gun bullets and explosions filled the air and took their toll. Soldiers felt that every cubic foot of air had metal hurtling through it.

Machine gun next attacked in the battle

The attack on Barton’s Hill

In the woods directly in front of him, Captain Barton saw muzzle flashes from four German dugouts. After capturing one of them, Platoon commander Gordon Porter of Wichita Falls crawled from hole to hole toward another. Men taking shelter with 1st Lt. Porter were shot dead by the machine gunners, who shifted their attention when another wave of the 142nd (Companies I, K, L and M) appeared in view. Porter made his move on the enemy. Later he said, “evidently he didn’t see me so I walked right on the two of them” and captured them. Porter then turned the gun around and fired on Germans rushing forward to hold their line.

As Barton and his men maneuvered around one dugout and captured it, another hidden dugout would open fire. This process continued until the woods was cleared of Germans. Company G captured between fifty and sixty Germans and five machine guns there. When they emerged from the woods, they saw low, flat fields with concrete machine gun nests. 

As the men advanced beyond the treeline, they came under heavy machine gun fire from their front and right. They were ahead of other American troops now. Captain Barton and his men advanced through the gunfire and explosives to neutralize the strong points. As he moved from one shell crater to another, Barton encountered men from other companies. The assault force had become intermixed and disorganized. Because of the trees, Barton could not see the rest of his unit, but the enemy could see him. Barton and his men captured about 150 more Germans and many machine guns. But of the four company commanders that went forward in the first wave of the assault, Barton was the last man standing. The others had all been wounded or killed.

Barton's Hill attacked by the men of the 142

Toward the village

Captain Barton was now the battlefield leader of what was left of Companies E, F, G and H: the Second Battalion. He was on the Saint-Étienne – Orfeuil road leading his troops to Saint-Étienne. German artillery was falling also with green and yellow bursts of poison gas. Barton and his men advanced several hundred yards toward the village and his advance soldiers found men from Company L of Third Battalion. Eventually Barton found their commander, Captain Steve Lillard of Decatur, who was also leading men from Company I. 

As Barton and Lillard were assessing the situation, the Germans counterattacked on the American right. The 142nd had advanced further than the next unit on their right, the 141st Infantry, and were exposed to the enemy. Attempts to bring up reinforcements were unsuccessful, and five messengers Barton sent back to his commander were all wounded or killed. Captains Barton and Lillard decided to withdraw their men from the open field back to the wooded hill where there was, as Barton put it, “an abundance of German machine guns and plenty of German ammunition.”

As they retreated the Captains found the Third Battalion commander and some men from Company K. They all made their way back to the wooded hilltop and dug in. Barton found a company of U.S. Marines from the Second Division and the 142nd Infantry’s Machine Gun Company and convinced them to dig in as well, commenting later, “This made the world look brighter.” 

For his actions in the assault on October 8-10, 1918, and notably for his leadership in the capture and defense of “Barton’s Hill”, Captain Thomas D. Barton of Amarillo was awarded the Distinguished Service Cross for extraordinary heroism in the face of the enemy.

Resources

Texas Military Forces Museum: The 71st Brigade at St. Etienne

Battle of Saint Étienne

Peter LarsenLeave a comment

On October 4th, 1918, men of the 142nd Infantry were preparing to leave Champigneul, a village near the Marne River in northeast France. The 142nd was part of the 36th Infantry Division, headquartered in Pocancy, the next village to the south. The 36th Infantry had been living in villages near the south bank of the Marne River for six days, waiting to go to the front. Just eight days before, on September 26th, allied forces attacked the entire German line in France and Belgium. It was, and remains, the largest land battle in U.S. military history.

Only the 36th Infantry Division was not with the American army. U.S. General John J. Pershing had loaned the 36th to the French Army for the battle, where it expected to stay in reserve behind the front line. The 36th had just cut short their training to join the Groupe d’armées de Centre, who were fighting alongside the U.S. First Army. Most noteworthy, the 36th Infantry had no combat experience, and had never been to the front. When it entered combat, according to the plan, the 36th Infantry would push through the French countryside after others had broken through German fortifications.

For France

During their short stay south of the Marne the men of the 36th experienced firsthand glimpses of war. Hundreds of buildings stood in ruins from artillery and aircraft attacks. The appearance of German planes brought the Southwesterners out of their billets to watch. Some of the towns were attacked, while Texans and Oklahomans took shots at German aircraft with their rifles.

Meanwhile, the 36th did their best to get equipped for combat. The French gave them the correct number of mortars, flare pistols and grenades. The men carried out drills as best they could during that week along the Marne, staying out of sight of German aircraft. At night they would look to the north and east to watch and hear artillery duels from the battle just beyond the horizon.

U, S, Marines recruiting poster, 1918

To the front

In nearby Champagne, German and French armies faced one another from more or less the same trenches since September 1914. The French had suffered great losses twice in 1915 trying to push the Germans out. Since 1914, the Germans had built concrete bunkers in multiple lines of defense. The last French offensive, in September 1915, cost them 145,000 casualties. The defending Germans regained all lost ground during the battle at half the cost in dead and wounded. Over three years the French and Germans expanded their fortifications. Germany’s Hindenburg line was a system of machine-gun bunkers, observation posts and underground shelters that stretched across the region.

Three years later, in September 1918, the French attacked in Champagne. French soldiers were able to capture parts of the Hindenburg Line. Still, after two attacks, they were unable to break through a German stronghold in the Champagne countryside called Blanc Mont. Visiting there today, you can see why: a long hill bristling with bunkers with a clear view for miles around. The French sent in a fresh division, the U.S. Second Infantry, to take Blanc Mont.

Send the Second

The reputation of the Second Division is the stuff of legend (“Second to None”, if you ask them). One of the first U.S. divisions to become active in France in 1917, the division included one Army brigade and one Marine brigade.  In June 1918 the Second Infantry blunted the German spring offensive at Belleau Wood, saving the city of Paris in the process. It was a desperate, costly fight that neither side could afford to lose. German attackers were amazed at the fighting spirit of the inexperienced Yanks, who turned them back in spite of terrible casualties. On June 26th, 1918, silence in Belleau Wood was followed by a dispatch from Major Maurice Shearer, 3rd Battalion, 5th Marine Regiment. It simply said:

“Woods now U.S. Marine Corps entirely.”

German and American battle lines at Blanc Mont, October 2nd thru October 10th

Blanc Mont

On October 3rd, 1918, the U.S. Second Division attacked the system of fortifications at Blanc Mont and captured it within two hours. In doing so, they had advanced a mile and a half beyond the nearby French lines and so were exposed on their left and right. Facing the enemy on three sides, the Second Infantry held their ground despite German counterattacks. The Americans held a narrow wedge of territory, 500 yards wide, inside the German defenses. Try as they might to push forward, further German strong points made this impossible. Artillery shells were landing on the American position from close range. U.S. soldiers and marines dig in and kept watch for an assault.

The next day, October 4th, the Germans counterattacked on the left flank of American positions, which were held by Marines. There was also heavy fighting on the right side, which was held by the Army. On that day and the next, October 5th, the Americans tried to advance but could not. The fighting was intense and losses were heavy. The American-French force had broken through German defensive lines and wanted to expand beyond them. The Germans were determined to resist because retreating would endanger other German troops fighting the main American army in the Meuse-Argonne sector.

Marine veterans of Belleau Wood said the Battle of Blanc Mont Ridge was the tougher fight.

P. C. 142nd Infantry during St. Etienne fight Oct. 7 to 12

Call to the 36th

French and American commanders agreed reinforcements were needed immediately. The 36th Division was called to the front. On October 4th, half the division traveled by truck about 31 miles from Champigneul to the ruined town of Suippes. The journey took all night and the 142nd Infantry marched the last two miles to their first stop, Somme-Suippe. The 142nd waited at Somme-Suippe on October 5th for the other half of the 71st Infantry Brigade, the 141st Infantry Regiment, to arrive. On October 6th the whole brigade marched north to the town of Somme-Py, about 11 miles. On their way the 71st Brigade made its way through the Hindenburg Line, taken by the French in the first days of the battle. Here, Texans and Oklahomans saw French and German dead on the battlefield. When they got to Somme-Py, the U.S. Second Division had ammunition and supplies there waiting for them.

The rest of the way, about four miles, was under German observation and would have to be crossed at night. The commanders of the 141st and 142nd Infantry reported to Marine Major General John A. Lejeune, commanding the U.S. Second Division, for orders. The order was for the 71st Brigade to make its way to the front and relieve the entire 2nd Infantry Division.

Somme-Py after the battle 26 September - 11 November 1918
Somme-Py after the battle

At the front

The men of the 142nd Regiment spent late afternoon and evening of October 6th near Somme-Py taking as many supplies as they could carry. Company commanders tried to get their hands on maps of enemy positions and water for the men. Marines were expected to guide them to the front, but they had taken shelter while the Germans were shelling the town. However, soldiers of the 142nd did not meet their Marine guides until after nightfall. Since the Marines had arrived by truck in daylight, they did not know how to get back to the front by foot. Finding their way forward in the dark was trial by error, and the men quickly became lost. As a result, the 142nd Regiment did not get on the right track until late at night.

The untested soldiers were now on their way to war. Second Division Marines on their way to the rear passed them as they advanced and remarked of the National Guardsmen “singing and joking as they went. High words of courage were on their lips and nervous laughter.” One Marine told another, “Hell, them birds don’t know no better…Yeah, we went up singin’ too, once–good Lord, how long ago!…they won’t sing when they come out, or any time after.”

The soldiers had witnessed German artillery hits that afternoon near Somme-Py. Now that they were moving nearer to the front, exploding shells were closer and closer. The Germans had targeted crossroads especially, and soldiers were held up at them waiting for a pause in the shelling. Three men were killed by German artillery, the first combat losses in the 142nd.

Boche Strong Point South of St. Etienne the Morning of the Attack

Dug In

It was daylight, October 7, when the 142nd reached the front line. The battlefield was not like anything they had trained for: a series of foxholes and shell craters with the occasional abandoned German dugout was their shelter. The Germans were about 100 yards away, and had seen them arrive. Machine guns opened up on the Americans and soon artillery shells exploded nearby. Men dug their own holes or leaped into foxholes just vacated by the Marines. Germans could be seen across no-man’s land, moving from dugout to dugout. That afternoon, artillery hits were more severe with American dead and wounded.

Commanders in the 71st Brigade spent a frantic day completing the relief of the Second Division and locating supplies and ammunition. Later on, a French tank battalion showed up, which encouraged the men. Maps were in short supply and not useful when commanders got them. Lastly, there was only one day’s supply of food and water; what each man had carried there.

That night, commanders made their way back to Somme-Py for final orders. At that moment they learned that they would attack the German line. Major General Lejeune had asked his French commanders that the 36th spend a few days getting used to combat operations before going on the attack. His superior, French XXI Corps commander General Stanislas Naulin, disagreed and set the attack to resume at dawn on October 8th with the 71st Brigade in the lead.

Learn more about the battle on the 8th of October:

In the face of the enemy

For Extraordinary Heroism

Conspicuous Gallantry and Intrepidity

Resources

Texas Military Forces Museum: The 71st Brigade at St. Etienne

Deployed

Peter Larsen1 Comment

September 1918 found the 36th Infantry Division still in the Thirteenth Training Area surrounding Bar-sur-Aube, France. The 36th had been there since early August for their final training before entering the combat zone. Since the division arrived in Bar-sur-Aube from three different French ports of debarkation, it was a reunion. They spent a month traveling there from Texas by train, ship and foot. The Thirteenth Training area was a group of villages in northeastern France, and accommodations for many of the men were primitive. Yet soldiers of the 36th Infantry enjoyed the work and forged bonds with the French people during their training.

But the reunion didn’t last long. As the American First Army was preparing for its first offensive action in September, front-line Divisions needed to fill their ranks. Two thousand men from the 36th were transferred to other divisions in late August and September. Many of them transferred to the 42nd Infantry “Rainbow” Division. This National Guard Division already contained a transportation unit from Texas and an Ambulance unit from Oklahoma. Overall the 42nd Infantry had units from twenty-six U.S. states and the District of Columbia, which made it unique in the Army.

Other men from the 36th transferred to the 90th “Texas-Oklahoma” Infantry, a National Army Division from Camp Travis in San Antonio. Men in the T-O insisted it stood for “Tough ‘Ombres” and would get a chance to prove it that September in the Saint-Mihiel Offensive.

Soldiers of the 36th Division with French youth after the Armistice.

Training for the real thing

As summer turned into fall the men of the 36th Infantry trained in rural France. Losses to the division by transfer were partly made up by the arrival from Camp Bowie of 783 men who– for one reason or another– didn’t make the train back in July. These men had been AWOL (Absent With Out Leave), sick in the hospital or otherwise detained from making the journey. Training was the constant in the last days of summer with long marches and simulated battles in the French countryside. The men participated with gusto but by the fall had worn out much of the clothing that had been issued to them in New York back in July. Soldiers were also having a hard time keeping clean in their makeshift lodgings and some of them were getting sick.

It was also at this time that the Spanish Influenza reached the Thirteenth Training Area. There was nothing “Spanish” about this affliction since it was in fact a pandemic. Influenza had a significant impact on German forces just one hundred miles away. But the soldiers of the 36th Infantry were well spread out, and medical officers had the foresight to quarantine men with influenza from the rest of the troops. In the 142nd Infantry, there were fifteen fatalities from the pandemic in 1918. Illness brought more vigilance to personal care and hygiene in the division, and separate quarters were made in field hospitals for those not suffering from influenza. Patients noticed that the Medical units of the 36th Division were receiving supplies for battle.

Last minute changes

Equipment was finding its way to Area 13 as well. On September 20th, the 111th Supply Train got fifteen Pierce-Arrow trucks. Ninety-eight officers were transferred into the 36th Division at Bar-sur-Aube. On September 20th Otho Farrell was promoted six ranks from Corporal to Color Sergeant. Farrell was part of the 142nd Infantry Headquarters office staff, and as a corporal he would be expected to take down orders in shorthand, type them, keep records and post communications. Now he was one of two Color Sergeants in the 142nd, subordinate only to the Regimental Sergeant Major in the HQ.

Machine Gun Team, 132nd MG Battalion, 36th Div.

Deployed

On September 23rd 1918 the 36th Division was ordered to make itself ready for transport to the front. US Infantry Divisions in France normally trained for eight weeks behind the lines before transferring to a quiet zone of the front line. There infantry battalions would embed with an allied regiment (usually French) to learn defensive operations in the trenches. This process could take another eight weeks or more before an American Army division was released for combat operations. But it was not to be. The strategic situation in late September 1918 had changed significantly. The 36th Division was needed on the front line.

The division curtailed its training schedule about ten days early and made preparations. Motor vehicles in the 36th pulled out toward the front. Men had to pack only their battlefield essentials and move toward the train stations. Troops gathered at stations in Bar-sur-Seine, Bar-sur-Aube and Brienne-le-Château on September 26th. For seven weeks, the 36th Division had made northeastern France their home. Now they were going to fight for it.

Transitions

When the old 7th Texas Infantry Regiment stepped off the train in Fort Worth in September 1917, there were over 1,900 new recruits from northwest Texas and the panhandle. Now, just over one year later, 615 of those same men boarded another train in France with the 142nd Infantry Regiment. Of the missing 1,300 men some had been invalided out of the Army by a failed physical or by disease the previous winter. Some of them had died of those diseases, others were killed in accidents. Many were transferred to other units. The Texans that remained were joined by other volunteers from Oklahoma, and then by draftees from several other states. Somehow, the 615 who remained had a Texas-sized influence on the character of their unit on the eve of battle.

The trains and trucks traveled about sixty miles northward to Avize and Épernay, near the Marne River. On arriving, the 36th Division entered service as part of the French Army. General Pershing had loaned the 2nd, 36th and 93rd Infantry divisions to France. When they got there, no one in the French Army was expecting them. After the initial confusion men had to find shelter in the ever-present French rain. The Division had moved within twenty miles of the front line and were staying in villages between Châlons-en-Champagne and Épernay. Their Artillery Brigade, the 61st, had not joined them and they were missing their Engineer Regiment. The rest of the division was 20 percent understaffed.

131st Machine Gun Battalion, 36th Infantry Division after the Armistice.